But Hamas also has a media strategy. Its purpose is to portray
Israel’s unparalleled efforts to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza as
indiscriminate firing at women and children, to pervert Israel’s
rightful acts of self-defense into war crimes. Its goals are to isolate
Israel internationally, to tie its hands from striking back at those
trying to kill our citizens and to delegitimize the Jewish State. Hamas
knows that it cannot destroy us militarily but believes that it might do
so through the media.

One reason is the enlarged images of
destruction and civilian casualties in Gaza that dominated the front
pages of U.S. publications. During this operation, The Post published
multiple front-page photographs of Palestinian suffering. The New York
Times even juxtaposed a photograph of the funeral of Hamas commander
Ahmed Jabari, who was responsible for the slaughter of dozens of
innocent Israelis, with that of a pregnant Israeli mother murdered by
Hamas. Other photos, supplied by the terrorists and picked up by the
press, identified children killed by Syrian forces or even by Hamas
itself as victims of Israeli strikes.

In reporting Palestinian
deaths, media routinely failed to note that roughly half were terrorists
and that such a ratio is exceedingly low by modern military standards —
much lower, for example, than the NATO campaign in the Balkans. Media
also emphasize the disparity between the number of Palestinian and
Israeli deaths, as though Israel should be penalized for investing
billions of dollars in civil-defense and early-warning systems and Hamas
exonerated for investing in bombs rather than bomb shelters. As in
Israel’s last campaign against Hamas in 2008-09, the word
“disproportionality” has been frequently used to characterize Israeli
military strikes. In fact, during Operation Pillar of Defense this year,
Hamas fired more than 1,500 missiles at Israel and the Israeli Air
Force responded with 1,500 sorties.

The imbalance is also of language. “Hamas health officials said 45
had been killed and 385 wounded,” the Times’ front page reported. “Three
Israeli civilians have died and 63 have been injured.” The subtext is
clear: Israel targets Palestinians, and Israelis merely die.

The media perpetuated Hamas propaganda that traced the fighting
to Jabari’s elimination and described Gaza as the most densely
populated area on earth. Widely forgotten were the 130 rockets fired at
Israel in the weeks before Jabari’s demise. For the record, Tel Aviv’s population is twice as dense as Gaza’s.

I constantly hear justified complaints about how Israel has no media strategy and doesn't do hasbara properly. I can't think of a better answer to both of those claims than having our ambassador go after the host country's media for being biased against Israel. I hope that others in the diplomatic corps will follow suit.

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About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-three years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 10 to 31 years and seven grandchildren. Three of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com